But for the sake of understanding the real state of the union, take a look at this real counties’ voting map (from the Washington Post) shows voters’ choices by county. America is not as crazy as Trump’s Red/Blue map would make the world think!

The intense red spots are the areas where the fringe/lunatic/rabid people who love the man who lied to them are based in highest concentrations. I wish someone would overlay this map on a map of percentage of people with a college degree. Or a map of people and iQ scores, or SAT scores for that matter!

Not all of the people in these red spots are terrible. Many are simple minded, mostly undereducated folks, who are gullible to any snake oil seller’s claims.

Thankfully,, these people are not the sharpest tools in the shed. They are by no means the majority of the country. They, and their limited ability to admit to their mistake.

And that’s how Trump, and his supporters, like it. They embrace living in a world of delusion, hatred, bigotry, illiteracy and falsehoods that sound good. Some openly admit to not wanting to know real facts!

They are the ones demanding and expecting great things in life, like well paying jobs, without even being able to speak, read or write proper English. Many of these areas are the biggest users of ObamaCare, but yelled asking for the failed Repeal & Replace effort.

God save their children from growing up with such ignorance and stupidity. God save our country, and our planet, from the damage Trump and his cronies are doing to it.

The article (Tech In Pakistan 2014) in the reputable Pakistan newspaper, Dawn, makes good points lamenting the mind numbingly stupid, and self-destructive, policies and factors that make for such “tepid performance” in Pakistan. The author, Y. Brohi, points how one does not need an army of people to launch a startup. My personal experience proved that, indeed, even one person can start a revolution or entire industries for others to build on.

In the end of the 80s and early 1990s, I was fortunate and blessed to pioneer and launch Internet email service in Pakistan right from my home in Gulberg-III, Lahore, while I was studying for my MBA at Columbia University Graduate School of Business in New York City. Together we, my partner & friend Ashar Nisar and I, were able to launch the .PK ccTLD, literally putting Pakistan on the brave new digital world’s map.

I later also had the opportunity to make another, less known but also important, humble contribution to Pakistan’s economic progress, by bringing and launching global credit cards in Pakistan, starting with issuing the first MasterCard license to a Pakistani bank in the early 90s. The availability of credit to the middle class can be a major driver to drive economic activity and the creation of products, services and related jobs.

Both of those industries were launched with no government funding (actually, we succeeded despite resistance and other tactics of the authorities of that time that I will not mention), and without venture capital, which at that time was near impossible to get in Pakistan.

My reason for writing this is not to boast on past achievements but to exhort the dynamic and hard working Pakistani entrepreneurs to learn from what the article says and what my experience shows.

You, one person, can start anything you want. There is nothing stopping the next secure identity and privacy solution to be created in Pakistan. There is no reason that artificial intelligence or secure cloud computing methods cannot be pioneered by Pakistanis.

If there is one thing that I have been frustrated by, and feel is a core reason for Pakistanis not creating world changing new things, is the disregard for intellectual property rights and concepts. From people ripping DVD movies to kids ripping games without payment, to the shameless way so-called respectable newspapers (excluding Dawn) steal and reprint others’ creative output, theft of intellectual property is commonplace, and almost something people boast about.

How then can people think in terms of creating intellectual property if they are themselves busy stealing someone else’s? That attitude is embedded in our culture and needs to be addressed. Without that, all the creative capabilities of Pakistanis will continue to be wasted on copying or reverse engineering others’ work, not creating brave new IP to change the world.

I would love to see that topic get discussed at a national level. There are few nations that have so much creative entrepreneurial talent than Pakistan, as I have seen in my ~30 years of traveling the world.

Let us find ways to stimulate that and channel that and guide that for the greater good of the creators and the nation. That is why, in speaking to groups of Pakistani entrepreneurs and technology professionals, I say, “To Achieve Greatness In The Digital World, Respect Intellectual Property And Innovate With Your Own, Or Be Irrelevant!”

I have always believed in the convenience of biometric devices. They have been hard to come by on Macs, but for many years I have used and appreciated a fingerprint scanner (infrared pad to USB) from Microsoft, that only worked on Windows, though sadly now does not work in Windows 7.

This Eikon fingerprint scanner is a USB plug in type for the Mac and comes with Windows software also. I tested and use it on both platforms, after buying from Amazon.

The product itself gets 3 stars, but the 4th star is for the fact that they made the effort to develop it for Mac, and even more so for how absolutely wonderful both the seller (reseller) and the manufacturer were to my emails about the bugs and frustrations I encountered.

It is finicky, it often takes 2-3 slides of the finger(s) or one slow very accurate swipe for it to work. Often I wonder if the 2-3 attempts are worth the hassle of using the device. On the other hand (no pun intended) it does log me in quickly when I do it “right”. Using it regularly and getting used to it provide the benefit that you can ( I did) make the password far more complex/long than when just typing it in my hand. E.g. &*mYpa$$word&*43!! Instead of just &*mYpas$$ etc.

The worst thing about the design is that it is useless to plug in to a typical MacBook Pro (i5 15″ for this case) when anything else is plugged in. It is too wide. So, it comes with a maybe 6″ USB extension, but then it makes it even less attractive, in visual and usage sense.

Now you have loose hanging thing twisted upside down or sideways sitting on the side of your laptop (as the cables often have an inherent ‘twist’ torque in them that flip the device on its side), and it is now even less usable as you almost have to grab is with one, hold it up firmly enough so you can swipe a finger from the other hand through it.

Since I use external USB keyboards with my MacBook Pros, I tried to plug it into the USB built in to Apple keyboards. No joy, as the device will not fit there and even if it did, it would be under the keyboard body and not usable. Hanging it by the USB tail extension I can use it but it will always move around, still requiring the 2 hand use, unless I scotch tape it. Then, it makes the laptop a little less mobile if I have to remove it every time I travel.

I am also disappointed that despite taking far more repetitions to learn a fingerprint than a 10 year old Microsoft infrared fingerprint reader (sadly not compatible with Mac or even Windows 7 now), it still needs the finger swipe to be so specifically accurate. But, it i doable, and when you get used to it, it does save time.

A plus is that I have it working on an office provided Windows 7 laptop. A disappointment is that it does not store finger prints on the device for MAC users. It does store the fingerprints for the Windows software! So, technically I think I can carry it to different Windows desktops/laptops without having to save fingerprints x 10 x 5 repetitions per finger on each machine, but for each Mac I would have to go through that process.

Based on just how cooperative the seller and the manufacturer have been, and the price, and overall tolerable usability, I am considering getting another unit so I can leave one taped to the desk and one to carry with me or use on the other laptop(s). Or, of course, I will be happy to buy the next great biometric device that comes out for my preferred platforms.

But please be aware of the shortcomings (and advantages) before you order this or similar devices.

An industry colleague and fellow blogger/journalist Mary Jander wrote an interesting article, “Security May Be Too Big a Job for IT” on Internet Evolution. It was a thought provoking post. Though I only see two comments on it at the time of writing this article, I am, for someone often taking contrarian views, quite in agreement with both Kim Davis and smkinoshita who wrote comments there. They talked about collaboration, and where the role of Security in an organization should lie.

With the advent of Cloud Computing, and more and more use of public, hybrid and public cloud converged infrastructures, one of the questions I am asked most often is, “Oh, is the cloud secure?”

Ironically, this is common between a housewife sitting on a flight next to me and a CEO that I may be advising.

“Nothing is secure, unless you make it a collaborative business of everyone in the enterprise to make it so,” is what I, sometimes to their chagrin, bluntly tell them.

The first is due to enterprise architectures designed for the last century, or at best, for the last decade.

The second is the human element of doing management by dividing large entities into smaller pieces for easier management. That works great for operations, project management, etc. but is a terrible approach to security.

The third is a lack of collaboration (and integration) where it counts (end-to-end enterprise security) while organizational leaders patting themselves on the back for having rolled out some collaboration platform for sharing Word documents and Excel files.

This problem is not new. It goes back decades.

In 1999, as CEO of EverTrac, a pioneer of location-aware mobile information management & security, I was privileged to speak to top leaders at the United States Space & Missile Defense Command(I still get goosebumps at that name 🙂 and tell people to envisage Crystal Palace in one of my favorite childhood movies, War Games) at an Undisclosed Location in Alabama 🙂 .

But, excitement aside, I was surprised (and seriously concerned) when they were surprised at my saying they had to worry more about the information than about how to secure the servers and data centers, as they were focused on.

Even more, I said, they had to start thinking in terms of erasing boundaries between security departments — not just in IT but even with and within non-IT. At the level of criical importance their Star Wars program was (and the nature of information today must be even more important and the threats even more nefarious and multifarious), not only would there be attempts, I said, to break in over the network, but physically, as well as various combinations.

The advent of mobile devices, global networks, hacking tools, complicated systems with often un-patched vulnerabilities, managed by people either lacking or not interested in keeping up with the latest iterations of technology and security challenges and solutions, all touching the cloud, make for an explosive mixture.

Even in 1999, I declared to my audience that these problems had CURES™.

I said Collaborative Unified Realtime Enterprise Security (collaboration was not yet a buzzword then) would be key to solving the problem before it became intractable. Sadly, 12-13 years later, even the top companies in private sector high information value businesses do not get it.

I continue to highlight this even more vociferously the more our lives generate, use, and are governed by, floods of big data, accessible to crowds large and small, all in a cloud with nebulous threats and security capabilities. I am glad others are taking up this serious problem.

There’s a so-called writer Steve Clemons at The Atlantic, who is probably on the CIA payroll, and writes articles to generate hate or negative opinion about whoever his puppet masters want to target for attack next. You can almost see the tails wag these dogs almost in unison in typical neo-con publications. His latest “article” is about “America’s New War with Pakistan“…

You can almost imagine the conversation… “OK, what do you want me to write against them… OK.. Yes, please. The usual payment to the usual account. Thank you. Consider the article done and posted.”

No surprise my comment below was deleted though it is neither offensive nor abusive.

I wonder what this writer’s position was when now-terrorist former-hero Haqqani was a state guest in the White House with none other than US President Ronald Reagan… You know, that time not too long ago in a galaxy quite nearby, when US tax dollars were being spent to teach DDD (dead dog dictator) Zia how to crush democracy, create the ISI, fund black ops, and how to shove zealotry into a moderate Muslim Pakistan (and basket case Afghanistan) to make people consider the war against the Soviet occupiers an Islamic Jihad.

Ah, the irony, the irony. Good old fashioned conservative Christians in power funding with American tax payer money the creation of madrassahs and indoctrination programs, to teach young boys and men to kill or die fighting non-Muslim occupying armies….

Oooops, fast forward 30 years and that is our American soldiers now paying the price for that policy…

Once again, Pakistan was befriended when USA needed it, then used, abused, dumped it like a used Kleenex and now now, suddenly, puppet writers in many publications are writing op-eds about Pakistan as the new enemy.

Like everyone else, I was seriously concerned about the threat of new terror attacks on the 10th Anniversary of September 11. I was more worried about vehicle borne or even lone wolf suicide bombings than someone still managing to pull off a terror attack using jet airliners.

So, I read with interest the news reports of two separate planes that caused national security alerts, with fighter jets being scrambled, and passengers being questioned, after landing, for their… drum roll… extended use of the airliner toilets.

A news item in particular was very strange… An American Airlines “pilot became nervous when he noticed that several passengers were making frequent trips to the bathroom.”

I am all for safety and being alert, especially on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, but what kind of airliner pilot is more focused on how many people are going to the bathroom than flying the darn plane? Is he SuperPilot that he can see through the locked cockpit door? Or did some ditsy (male or female) flight attendant cause the scare? They should consider taking a job in a restaurant to keep track of bathroom visits by patrons.

Also, I am all for a couple deciding to make out on planes, trains and automobiles, but (if that is indeed what had happened on aFrontier Airlines flight) for a couple to try pulling that off (no pun intended) in an aircraft toilet on 9/11 suggests the Moron gene’s presence.

Maybe airlines should not issue coupons (like drink coupons) on how many times and for how long passengers can go to the bathroom. eBay can set up a new marketplace to trade in toilet time futures.

A separate news report during the hunt for possible terror plotters mentioned how police were searching for stolen vans and similar vehicles.

That made me think… how dumb must be those retards who would steal any vehicle, much less a potential bomb-carrying-capable van on or around 9/11. I really wish they get caught, and even if they’re simply Grand Theft Auto fans, I hope they are shipped to Guantanamo for the crime of being extra stupid, and for causing extra concern for the whole nation.

Finally, I am thankful that 9/11 2011 passed solemnly and uneventfully from a security perspective, but I remain concerned, and we must remain vigilant. We are not out of danger, and we are all in this together.

What were your thoughts on 9/11/2011 and how have your thinking and you changed since 9/11/2001 ?

President Zardari, the whole nation and almost the whole world have congratulated you on your ascension to the highest office in our land.
Your political party also controls Parliament and most of the provincial bodies. The Armed Forces have, showing wisdom and loyalty to the Constitution of Pakistan, stayed out of the fray.
Past allies and even competitors have shown political civility towards you. For the first time in recent history of Pakistan there is not a group of politicians sitting outside the tent throwing rocks, claiming the President is illegitimate.
On top of that, you can even leverage your historic domestic opportunity to win advantages for Pakistan on the global affairs scene.
As a Pakistani writer, and later as an American TV and media commentator, I have always loudly complained about the way America and Americans want to see democracy around the world, but American policymakers love to deal with, and support, dictators, especially in Pakistan.
Even in this, fate is on your side, at least at present. As I said during a recent interview on the very popular and influential Fox News Channel, in having you as President of Pakistan, America and American policymakers can get what they both want; a democratically elected Pakistani President with almost dictatorial powers, but without the bad aftertaste of a military regime.
Talking about fate, it seems the alignment of the stars favors you in one more way. Thanks to the foolish, even America-destroying, policies adopted by President George W. Bush, the United States has turned its post September 11, 2001 surplus of global goodwill into a huge deficit. His actions have made and are making America, and my fellow Americans, widely reviled among the very people who once loved us.
Not content with destruction of America’s foreign goodwill, Mr. Bush has also taken the huge economic surplus left by ex-President Bill Clinton, and turned that into a huge, and growing, budget deficit. The result is the weakening of the sole-superpower, the United States of America, and enabling opportunities for other countries to rise up.
That is why puny dictators, like the one in North Korea, can play games of one-upmanship with Bush. It is also why Russia was so easily able to walk right into, and take over, parts of the former Soviet state of Georgia. They did it knowing full well that all Bush could do was send the Darth Vader of American politics, Vice President Dick Cheney scampering to the region. All Cheney could do was try to ensure the remaining states did not start quickly falling in line with the latest Russian expansionism.
What that means for America is the opportunity to work with a democratically elected President (and Prime Minister) of Pakistan, both belonging to the same party, which also enjoys a clear mandate by the nation to solve problems. What that means for Pakistan, under your government, is to exploit your position, not for further personal gain, or to benefit your friends and supporters, but to gain greater benefits for Pakistan and Pakistanis.
When I first heard about it, I thought you were doing well by heading to China, a supposedly stalwart Pakistani ally, but which recently has started building close relations with India. But now I hear that trip may be on hold. I still think you should not ignore China in this manner.
I also think it is imperative that you reach out to the Russians.
I have always been anti-Soviet, and am no fan of Russia or its grand designs. But, at this juncture in time and history, it is imperative for Pakistan to finally, and fully, exploit its geo-strategic opportunities. Former Communist and Socialist states are now more and more Capitalistic, at least in their economies. Therefore, it is even easier for you, and Pakistan, to build relationships with, what I call, a “Commutalist” China and a Resurgent Russia.
Let no one think for a moment that I have forsaken my lifelong disdain for Communism, Socialism and all things Soviet. I actually think Pakistan reaching out to Russia is in the interest of both countries I am citizen of, Pakistan and the United States.
How is that possible? Well, it is long standing US policy to exploit Pakistan as a willing satellite and then to walk away from it to go woo India, for example. Having a Pakistan that can as easily walk into the arms of China and Russia actually will help ensure American policymakers show more wisdom in dealing with Pakistan.
What this enables you to do is leverage the situation and work with America. It lets you gain back the trust we lost in the post-9/11 age. It helps you gain facilities that Pakistan has never enjoyed, despite being a loyal American friend for six decades.
During this time, a supposedly non-aligned, but Soviet-allied, India has gained incredibly huge business benefits. Even worse, it is now getting closer and closer to the United States militarily.
To add insult to an even bigger injury, it is India that is now getting civilian nuclear technology from the Bush government. The lame duck government of General Musharraf had ample time to prevent this terrible decision from being made by the lame duck administration of George W. Bush.
Despite having American policy being totally based on his persona, General Dictator Musharraf, and his lazy cohorts, hardly tried to do more than just get enough funds from America to keep them in power. Even if they did try, they failed miserably to stop India’s brilliant and confident march on to the world stage. India has managed to stand next to the United States as a democracy peer, and one day as a military one too. Even more brilliantly, India has done this without jeopardizing its relationship with the Russians.
What kind of slap in the face, kick in the pants, or punch in the nose does a Pakistani government need to see how quickly, and how effectively, Pakistan is being sidelined on the global stage?
The need of the hour from you, on the world stage, is to show that Pakistan means business; not that ruling Pakistan is just a business.
It is essential to insist that America immediately, sincerely and boldly increase its development aid to Pakistan. But you have to ensure transparency in linking such development funds to specific national level projects, be they dams, power plants or roads and infrastructure in underdeveloped areas of Pakistan. With your mandate, and the powers you are yet to show signs of relinquishing, you can easily push through long-stalled projects essential to national development and even survival.
Insist and demand that American nuclear power companies, with some of the world’s best civilian nuclear technology, be allowed to build, own and operate nuclear power plants in Pakistan. This is mutually beneficial. The American nuclear industry segment, which is very close to the Bush and his interests, gets opportunities to grow their global business. Pakistan gets the fastest possible mechanism for producing cheapest possible energy. And, this gets done while ensuring these civilian energy related nuclear projects do not get bogged down in nuclear non-proliferation issues.
Instead of increasing reliance on aging US-supplied military hardware, especially Zia-era aircraft like the F-16s, you must try to expand the horizons of Pakistan’s defense forces. To build our own capabilities, you must invite and encourage Pakistan’s private sector and technology entrepreneurs to build and provide military grade technologies to our armed forces.
At the same time, Pakistan must make sincere efforts to win America’s trust. You must leverage Pakistan’s geo-strategic location. Your government has to show solid results in the war on terror, which is now “our war” as much as America’s.
Your government should work to help stabilize Afghanistan and earn the right and privilege to be at par with, if not ahead, of the technologies America is giving India.
I can think of many reasons why my fellow Americans must realize that India is a long-term threat to US military and strategic interests in the region. I am sure your brilliant foreign affairs experts can give you many more.
Yet, India has all world powers falling over each other to sell it weapons and give it technology and business. Why can’t Pakistan do the same? Pakistan should reach out to European, Russian and American governments and defense manufacturers to seek the best they have to offer.
To exploit to the fullest the foreign relations opportunities you have been blessed with, I suggest that you reach out to, and visit, the largest powers that impact us directly. You must meet with the leaders of China, Russia, the United States as well as India.
Going to Dubai to take care of any kind of non-strategic, non-mission-critical, or personal business is a bad move. Blowing off China and rushing to our former colonizers in the United Kingdom at their slightest beckoning is a move Pakistan, and your government, will regret in the long run.
My suggestion is still to visit China, Russia, possibly Saudi Arabia. I would also add France, Germany and Japan to the list, while having your experts consider visiting a Muslim country like Malaysia that has done well on the global economic scene.
Yes, later, you should also visit the UK, and the USA and the UAE and any other country that you have an interest in.
But, now is not the time to rush there. When the time is right, when you have established a modicum of Pakistani sovereignty and independence, in the eyes of these countries, only then should you visit them. Believe me, you will find them more respectful and receptive to you if they know you are not rushing to their arms.
Ironically, even then, the loud and clear message you have to carry, as a democratically elected Pakistani President, is best summed in the words of a former dictator.
The people of Pakistan seek relationships with all these countries…. as our “Friends, Not Masters.”

Someone asked recently, “Didn’t Bin Laden work for the CIA? Didn’t they train him and give him loads of money?”

Well, I do not think Bin Laden was technically a direct recruit of the CIA or an employee.

I understand he went to Afghanistan on his own to fight the Russians, for their invasion of a Muslim land. US said he is a good man for feeling that way.

The CIA and the US Govt. were busy actually promoting the word JIHAD in Muslim countries like Pakistan so uneducated masses could be exhorted to volunteer to go into battle against Russians, many times knowing they would be suicide missions. So, Bin Laden was a Godsend to the CIA and they worked well together. Training and resources were surely provided to him.

Of course, now we are paying the price. We said he was a hero when he wanted outside armies out of Muslim lands like Afghanistan. When he said OK, now American armies out of Saudi Arabia (his actual home country)Blair and Bush started talking as if this is some ideology from 1000 years ago. Now, last time I checked 1979 was not 1000 yers ago when the US Govt. and CIA created the JIHADI soldier.

The Russians are probably laughing at us every day we get mad dogs we trained biting at us around the world now.